SA Govt to approve Olympic Dam desal plant

Mining company BHP Billiton will soon build a pilot desalination plant on South Australia's Upper Spencer Gulf, as part of its expansion plans for the Olympic Dam uranium mine.
Premier Mike Rann says the Government will approve the project this week.
Day two of Mr Rann's mining tour of Chile took him to the Colosso desalination plant in the country's north.
It provides 500 litres of water per second for the Escondida copper mine, the biggest of its kind in the world.
Mr Rann says the desalination plant proposed for the Upper Spencer Gulf is expected to provide three times that amount of water for both Olympic Dam and Eyre Peninsula towns.
"This makes sense economically, it makes sense environmentally and of course it takes pressure off the River Murray," he said.
The company's base metals executive Roger Higgins says materials for the desalination trial have already arrived in Adelaide and construction will start within weeks.